re: Ardour revisited

Sounds like a Lifetime movie, eh? If you're like me, champ was my one class where I never changed traits. Full red line, set it and leave it. Maybe trait for glory on those rare times you tank a 3 man (back when champs could tank a t2 3 man like NCF). But otherwise, ignore ardour because it was completely useless.

This may be old news to most, so ignore if you know all this already. But since I've been running foundry a lot lately, I've been playing around with the yellow trait line since so much of our job in there is AoEs. And I've found some cool stuff post-RoI.

First, trait 4 into yellow and your get these bonuses to ardour - +15% blade line (aoe) damage, -15% aoe power cost, reduced threat generation (with aoe skills). With weapon legacy and champ rune legacy, I have base +25% AoE dmg and -25% AoE power cost in ardour. This alone solves a lot of power issues, and is only 5% lower than the fervour damage bonus.

Second, trait 5 into yellow and equip the legendary trait Improved Great Cleave (IGC). I NEVER traited this before recently until I tried it on a whim. Combine this with Battle Acuity, and fire up the blender. So -

Five to 10 seconds or so into a fight with a good sized mob group (tank really needs to have a firm grip on aggro because you are about to unleash), get a full fervour meter and hit IGC and Battle acuity (in that order - Battle Acuity will remove 2 fervour and you can't hit IGC without 5). Note you need to have a target nearby for battle acuity - its like clobber and you need to hit something. Once you hit those two you have ~15 seconds of:

If you have the legacies and the minnie happens to have anthem of war up, your AoE dmg jumps to 70-80%, power cost to -25%. Cappie on board and it really gets insane.

So I generally hit raging blades first then all the rest of the aoe skills, including horn. RB should be up again so you can usually get one more in before IGC and Battle Acuity bonuses expire, maybe another blade storm too. You can trait IGC to have a 1.5 minute cooldown, so you can use it about every other trash mob fight.

I still use the +1200 crit and crit multiplier in the red line, and use fervour for trolls and bosses. But I've found mowing through trash mobs a lot more fun in ardour (and easier on the power). Post here any other thoughts and tips - Turbine gave champs a lot of love in RoI and there are lots of little tweaks to discover. Shing Shing!